


Romans 5:3

by steveelotaku



Category: Hellraiser & Related Fandoms, Hellraiser (Comics), Hellraiser (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-11 19:19:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11720835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steveelotaku/pseuds/steveelotaku
Summary: More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance...—Romans 5:3In a darkened church, a doubting priest hears a confession that will change his life.





	Romans 5:3

                _More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance...  
                —Romans 5:3_

                “Bless me father, for I have sinned.”

                Father Thomas had heard many confessions in his time.  He tried his best to blot out the sins of those he heard.  It was not that he could not forgive.  It was simply that he was haunted by what he heard, often.  He found himself weighed down by them, despite his knowledge that they were no longer his concern and that if they were truly sorry, God would erase them from the world.

                “And how long has it been since your last confession?”

                “Two months.”

                Father Thomas took a deep breath.  The voice on the other end of the confessional was familiar—a monk who he sometimes heard praying in the chapel.  His visits had become increasingly infrequent.  In fact, were it not for the abbot bringing his attention to it, he would have hardly noticed that the young monk had even been there.

                “State your sins, brother.”

                “I have become wayward, father.  I have indulged in every vice, every sin, every base act on this earth.  I have wandered from God, and I do not listen to Him.  His words seem to hold no meaning for me.”

                “Surely it cannot be as bad as all that, brother.  Your devotion in the chapel--”

                “Is a show, father.  A sham.  Words without thought never to heaven go.  You know your Shakespeare, father.  I am Claudius.”

                “Come now, there’s no need for drama.  Just tell me your sins.”

                The brother sighed.

                “I have fornicated.  Women.  Men. Anyone I can.  The pleasure never sated me.”

                “So you have renounced it, then?  Truly, to act without love in such matters, without even the slightest bond….that surely is empty.”

                The monk laughed softly.

                “Empty as the abbot’s wine jar,” he mocked.  “So I turned my attention to other pleasures.  Children.  Animals.  Eventually, sex became routine.”

                Father Thomas gagged.  Instantly, he felt ashamed—he was an impartial confessor; and yet, every part of him burned.  He felt himself imagining him strangling the monk.

                “Go on,” the priest stated, not wanting to even hear what was coming next.  He would have called the police, but bound as he was by his oath, he felt helpless.

                “Did you know, father, that the flesh has far more beauty than simple fornication?”

                “I did.  You should have, too,” he accused.  “God gave us such bodies to glorify Him and His work…”

                The monk laughed harder.

                “The flesh is my canvas, father.  Now, I truly understand mortification.  How supple it is, how delicate and yet durable!  Whips, flagellation—they were really onto something back during the plagues…the screams of sinners and saints alike fill my ears.  Oh God, grant me chastity and temperance…but not yet.”

                “St. Augustine.  You would do well to read beyond that, old friend.”

                “Spare me your judgment!”, the monk spat.  “I have found something greater than the dusty old tears of a saint!  I have found a box, and in that box I have found enlightenment.  A promise of pleasure beyond my wildest dreams!  A promise of truth.  No ark with broken old stones in it.  No Jesus on a sandwich.  Truth.  Pleasure beyond all dreaming.”

                “Your body will lie to you.  Real truth is pain.  But it will set you free.  It is seldom pleasant or easy to tell the truth.  But if you keep confessing, I will set you free from your sins…provided you sin no more in such areas!”

                There was a clicking on the other side of the confessional, like someone playing with a Rubik’s cube.  Sweet music, like from the tongues of cherubim, rang softly through the halls of the old church.  It reminded Father Thomas of an old musical figurine, carved of wood, of the Virgin Mary.  He had had it for many years, yet it no longer played its sweet _Ave Maria_ like it once did.  It came out in creaks and groans—a slow dirge painting a faint, distant hope.

                The monk laughed harder.

                What came from the box was almost a mockery of it.  A sweet melody, to be sure, but one that had no earthly rapport, one that had no sense of innocence.  At its sound, Father Thomas found himself questioning his faith.  He found himself wondering why he tried to save the irredeemable, why he ever tried to become a good shepherd in a world where there were more wolves than lambs.

                “Confess!” he screamed, punching through the screen.  “Confess, damn you!”

                Blood poured from the priest’s hand, and he clutched his rosary, tears in his eyes.  The melody continued to play, like the devil singing a nursery song.  He hadn’t saved this monk.  He couldn’t save him.  How many others, he wondered, had put up a façade of repentance, and gone on to embrace their sins?  How many more were like this monk, this nightmare in a cloak?

                The music stopped with a sound like wet flesh.  It reminded him of a day where he had cut part of his face while shaving—a slick cutting sound, and then a tinkle of the razor falling into the basin.

                He had hardly noticed the blood dripping onto him, for his hand was already cut.  When Father Thomas opened his eyes, however, he saw that through the screen, a river of gore had begun to flow.  Running from his side, he tore aside the curtain, and out fell the monk, his robes torn to shreds and his flesh studded with hooks and chains.

                “Jesu Maria!”

                In horror, he watched the body jerk upwards, laughing and sobbing.  For the monk was very much alive.

                It hung from the ceiling, spinning and dripping blood.  In its hands was an ornate box—a puzzle box.

                “Jesus Christ, save us!”

                “Jesus Christ?” came a voice, full of command.  “I’m afraid his arrival has been delayed.  But give the devil his due—I am here.”

                A man in black robes stood on the roof of the confessional, holding a hooked chain.  Blood flowed down the front of his robe, and his chain was rusted and gore-slicked.  His skin was pale as death, and nails had been drive into his skull in neat little squares.

                Father Thomas held out his rosary.

                “You are no priest of this order,” he spoke, defiantly.  “What manner of fiend are you?”

                “Fiend?” the man with nails in his skull scoffed.  “You call me fiend, when this wolf is among you?  He had come seeking pleasure.  I will _show_ him my pleasures.  No, I am no priest of God.  I do not mutter hosannas, I do not observe Vespers.  But I am a priest nonetheless.  Suffering is my bread.  Tears are my wine.  Agony is my choir, and sufferings are my psalms.  In my church all men are equal—for no man escapes pain.”

                “God delivers us from pain.”

                “I suppose he does…in a matter of perspective.  But even in death—which your congregation rushes to the moment they feel even slightly sick, drinking and poisoning themselves and begging for death—they still remain ignorant of death’s true pain.  When God’s son left this world, He tore into it a bloody scar.  His disciples missed him dearly, to the point of tears.”

                “He will return.”

                “And so he shall.  But if He is going to, I would suggest sooner rather than later.”

                “Heretic! Blasphemer!  You know not of what you speak!”

                The pin-headed man laughed.

                “Don’t I?  I have lived for centuries, in one form or another.  And all I see here is a man who struggles with faith.  Would it not be easier if Christ were to come and talk with you?”

                “He does,” Father Thomas admitted.  “It is hard to hear him, sometimes.  For I am but a man, and weak to the pleasures of this world.  I can’t hear him over my car’s engine, sometimes.  I can’t hear him if I have the TV on.  I sit in the silence sometimes, and even then I struggle to hear him over my worries.  I suffer, you know?"

                “Suffering?  Now that is a religion I understand.  For both the just and unjust suffer.  I am judge and prophet, Father Thomas.”

                “Then bring this back to your master,” the priest replied.  “Tell him that I forgive this man.  By this world’s rules, I shouldn’t.  By God, I do.  For I love him, as I love all men.  And tell him that I’m sorry I couldn’t save him.  May his suffering help him grow, for what it’s worth…”

                A faint glimmer of sorrow filled the black-robed man’s eyes.

                “Bless me, father—but do you believe all suffering has a point?”

                “I do.  Even when we can’t escape it.”

                The man laughed, his pins gleaming in the candlelight.

                “Then I wish you well, father.  Pray your faith holds strong, for if not—there are always other pleasures waiting…for the innocent and guilty alike.”

                Taking the box from the tortured monk, the hellish priest vanished into a pool of blood, which splattered across the floors of the church.

                Father Thomas sighed, and walked to the abbot’s office.  It was black as pitch inside.

                “I would like to request some leave, abbot.”

                “For what purpose, Father?  Your services are needed here.”

                Father Thomas sighed even louder.

                “A janitor is needed.  There’s a large bloodstain on the floor in the church.  Myself, I want leave to go cleanse myself.  For if I am to minister to the sick and suffering, how can I do so if I struggle to forgive?”

                The abbot nodded in the shadows.

                “I understand wholeheartedly.  In fact, I believe my master understands too.  You just spoke with him.”

                “Abbot?”

                The light came on, and Father Thomas fainted at the sight.

                In the abbot’s chair was a fat, scarred man in black sunglasses, holding a bloody chain.


End file.
